Nonfiction Resources for Beginning Readers

When I learned that Carla was writing about Project Based Learning (PBL), I thought about things that help make PBL successful in my classroom.  One of the most difficult things in my kindergarten class was finding nonfiction resources that my students could use relatively independently.

As we are heading into the spring, I know many lower level teacher who are going to be working on research with their kiddos.  In kindergarten in particular, as this is where my experience lies, it can be difficult to find nonfiction texts for your beginning readers.  A few years ago, I dreaded researching with my class due to their lack of independence.  With the help of my local library and through some personal research, I'd found a few sets of books that have made it much easier.  I'm going to share some photos I took of the books in each series to give you a sneak peek.

The first set I want to share is something many of you are probably familiar with: Pebble Plus books. These are published by Capstone and typically written around an H-I guided reading level.  These are great for my higher kids but still manageable enough for my lower level kids to at least get something out of.  The text is laid out for early readers. Here are a few peeks into one of these books.

The second book series is another one that I used sporadically, but last year our building bought sets to go with the themes we have.  I like the Blastoff Readers Books.  I only use the Level 1 books because these are most manageable for my kids.  I like the nonfiction text features in these.  

Last, but certainly not least, is my favorite for the earliest of readers: Bullfrog Books from Jump!.  I first checked a few of these out at the library about this time 2 years ago and instantly fell in love. They are simple to read, generally guided reading levels C-E, have awesome photos and great text features.  I just found that these are starting to come out in paperback, which makes me SO excited because it is so expensive to add a large amount of hardback books to a classroom library.

I hope these book ideas have given you some new ideas for the research your kiddos do.  I'd love to hear about any other books or resources you have been successful with your students!

Already Ready

Years ago a friend of mine would host soup nights. She would make a few pots of soup (her mom’s beef stew was my favorite), the kids would run around and the adults would visit. Flash forward a few years and we were all too busy with our growing kids to have soup nights, but one of my soup night friends wrote a book about Preschool and Kindergarten writers. In 2008, Matt Glover published his first book with Katie Wood Ray. This book, Already Ready Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten changed my teaching and classroom writing environment forever. Ray and Glover believe that children do not need to “get ready” to be readers and writers, but that they are already readers and writers. They believe that writing may be a better way to lead children’s literacy development than reading. I have found this to be true in my classroom. 

Ways that writing has made my Kindergarten students 

become better readers…

Kindergarteners will write books about topics that interest them. When you present children with mentor texts that they can make connections to, they will write about their own experiences or knowledge and want to have that book in their book box.

The writing workshop model builds stamina for writing and reading for long periods of time. The more they practice writing and reading the better they become at writing and reading.

Using invented spellings transfers to confidence and phonetic skills that students use to stretch out words when reading. 

It is difficult to make something if you don’t know anything about what it is you are trying to make. Developing an understanding about texts gets students excited about literature and gives them a deeper understanding of stories and how to write them. 

Sharing the books children have made with others builds fluency skills and allows children to express their intended meaning…and they are reading. 

When children buy into literacy activities it makes others want to join the club even before they know much about reading and writing.  Our littlest learners are already ready to be writers and readers. It is our job as teachers to inspire, support and lead them in the right direction. 

Project Based Learning...Good for One, Good for ALL

We often talk about how a one-size-fits-all curriculum just doesn't work in education, but today I'm hear to share with you that one instructional practice. Project Based Learning, or PBL, IS good for one learner, but it's also good for ALL learners.

Recently, I was able to hear Nell Duke, a leading researcher in the area of reading, speak on the topic of engagement. We know that engagement is more important than ever with the increased demands our standards bring, and we know what happens when you give challenging work to students who aren't interested in doing it, right? ONE ANSWER...Project Based Learning.

Duke says, "If you care about kids' interests, skills, and background knowledge, you'll get better comprehension results." She cited Jerry Brophy's study on ways teachers motivate kids. According to his study, teachers should:

Model interest in learning

Induce curiosity and suspense

Make abstract concepts concrete through demo lessons

Make the lesson objective clear to the learner 

Provide informative feedback 

Adapt tasks to interests

Give choice for tasks 

How does Project Based Learning mesh with these?  Why does Duke feel PBL is the way to go? Well, she began by describing a PBL experience that was done with 3rd grade students. The teacher introduced the idea with a read aloud about pesky animals such as earthworms, spiders, bats, and snakes in the book, Animals Nobody Loves by Seymore Simon. (Would this build curiosity and suspense? Yes.)  

Then, the students selected animals that they wanted to research further. (Would this be adapted to student interest? Yes.) Once the research part was complete, the students were asked to persuade others to LOVE the pesky animal and create a project that demonstrated WHY they should. (Would this task allow choice? Yes.) (Will students get immediate feedback? Yes.) Doesn't this sound like fun? As she described this project, I thought about how excited my students would be doing a project like this. The most interesting point she made though was that this was offered to ALL students in a low SES school. The results were very, very positive, and here is why.

Project Based Learning...

takes an extended period of time

achieves a purpose beyond school requirements

uses different learning styles (building, creating, answer deep questions)

is interdisciplinary

offers choice and voice

integrates reading and writing

taps into student interests, beliefs, and attitudes

is linked to standards (research strand is ideal)

gives students purpose for reading

AND allows students to reach a NEW audience

We know when students have a deep desire to read challenging texts, motivation will help them push through to complete it. We also know that reading multiple texts on the same topic deepens understanding of the content as well as related vocabulary too, so there is certainly research to support using PBL with ALL students.

How to Get Started

To prepare for this post, I reached out to my blogging friends to find additional blog posts and resources that teachers could use. First, I'll share posts for additional reading. If you are just getting started, you are sure to have lots of questions. These posts will hopefully take care of those and help you see a few more PBL examples.

This post is from Matt at Digital Divide and Conquer, and if you visit Matt's blog, you'll find a plethora of resources as well as informational posts on PBL I liked this post for explaining step by step how to dig into it. It's a MUST read, and his PBL units have been recommended by several who have used them.

This post from Performing in Education explains what PBL is, how it looks for teachers and students, what the process is, and (lucky you), it includes a sample resource. 

Cyndie at Chalk One Up for the Teacher has jumped into the PBL pond, and explained a PBL experience she had with her students. I just loved this example, and I know my students would love it too.  This one is a great example of PBL in the primary grades. Cyndie's students began with reading books in The Magic Treehouse series, and these books led to "inquiring minds". Having a leading question is important because it drives the exploration. Be sure to check this out if you're teaching grades 1-3.

Finally, I had to share this project from my friend, Sandy at Sweet Integrations. She has quite a few PBL sets in her store, and this post on her blog really caught my attention because we've read about the Iditarod with my fifth grade groups. The kids read Stone Fox in early fourth grade, so they had a little schema for dogsled racing. I had also used the book, Dogteam by Gary Paulsen for descriptive writing, and we had read a Close Reading article about the Iditarod too. Sandy's project would have been so perfect for them. (another year I guess) Anyway, she offers great ideas in her post about it if you think your students would be interested in learning more.

Free Sets to Get Started

    

   

Now, doesn't this sound like fun? Remember, Project Based Learning is not just a teaching idea for your Talented and Gifted students. Project Based Learning is a great technique for ALL. 

Have a great day, and I'll see you next month. 

Using Word Clouds as a Pre-Reading Activity

For whatever reason, I came across a pin of this item (below) in my Pinterest feed and it caught my attention.  

It's a word cloud from a 7th grade social studies teacher.  She makes a word cloud of her state's standards to share with her students at the start of the year so they can make inferences about what they will be learning.

I'm always looking for different ways to teach inferring, so I thought about how this could be used with younger students as a pre-reading activity.  I decided to make a word cloud with the text of a picture book to see if it would in fact pull out important words.  

I made two word clouds with two different spring themed books and I was pretty happy with how they turned out.  For the most part, they both seem to pinpoint the important vocabulary from the text and I think they definitely give students insight about the text they are about to read.

So how could you use these word clouds with younger readers during a pre-reading activity?  

Note: Since these texts are mostly nonfiction, I am focusing on those skills.  In the future, I'd like to try a fable or another genre and see what the results are.  

Identify the topic:  Easy right?!  What is this text going to be about?  What makes you think that?  The kids need to go beyond just saying seeds or plants.  They should be able to figure out that the first word cloud is for a book about a tiny seed growing into a flower, for instance.

Make inferences about the genre:  Students should be able to figure out that the texts are non-fiction or informational once they identify the topic.  

Set purpose for reading:  Following above, once identifying the topic and genre, the next natural step is to set a specific purpose for reading (to gather information about how a seed grows into a flower or plant).  Likewise, ask students to determine the author's purpose (to give information).

Access prior knowledge:  We do KWL's or concept maps before reading all the time.  Students looking at a word cloud of a text before reading would have a little bit more to go off of versus just a single word (i.e. What do you know about plants?).  The presence of other words will tip them towards other concepts they may not have thought of and their responses will be more detailed.

Develop questions:  Have students ask questions that they have about the concepts on the word cloud.  Another idea is to have students ask questions  that they believe will be answered in the text, even if they already know the answer (such as, What is a seed?).  Sometimes kids just need practice developing relevant questions. 

Introduce vocabulary:  While doing the above activities, assess how familiar your students are with the shown words and pre-teach necessary vocabulary that your students are not familiar with.  

As a side note, I made these word clouds using Wordle.net.  There are lots of other options but this was free, easy, and what popped into my head!  It did take me about ten minutes to type in the text for the book but it wasn't that much of a hassle, especially if it's for a book you would use every year.  I tried making them with Tagul too because you can do shapes, but I felt like it was a bit harder to read with so many words. 

Do you use word clouds in your ELA classroom?  Share your ideas with me! 

Big Kids Need Picture Books Too!

Hello, everyone! It's Andrea from Reading Toward the Stars!

Last weekend, I had the joy of presenting with my good friend and former author in Lit Land, Melissa from Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late on a topic that is near and dear to us.  Many times we forget that older students can and will read pictures books.  There are so many reasons for them, but I am going to highlight my top four.

So, why do big kids need picture books?

Picture books are great for so many comprehension skills for older students.  The simple plots help students see beyond the words and dig into the comprehension skills. I love using them for everything from simple plot elements to the more intense making inferences. ReadWorks has a plethora of awesome comprehension lessons that use picture books, a geat starting point!  Though you have to sign up to use it, it is completely free!

Picture books have a very rich vocabulary and are great for building that in so many ways. The book Baloney (Henry P.)  by Jon Scieska has words from other languages the students must figure out as they are reading it.  Many picture books help students learn new vocabulary through words and pictures.  How aswesome is that!

Picture books are geat for helping students become better writers. The letter above was written by some fourth graders after reading Dear Mrs. LaRue by Mark Teague.  The site Writing Fix has a ton of great writing mentor text lessons, and don't forget Read Write Think!

And finally!

Older students can be mesmerized by picture books.  What you can't see is the flock of students who are up in the front of the room listening to their fourth grade teacher share on of her favorite books. Big kids love these books for so many reasons.  Sometimes the picture books are actually meant for "big kids" too.

So, don't hold back! Read those pictures books with your older students! They won't forget it!

Fairy Tale Fun

Greetings Royal Reading Fans!

It's Jennifer from Stories and Songs in Second here to share some ideas about how to use a few different versions of one of my favorite stories to shake up your fairy tale unit this year!  I just love using folk and fairy tales as mentor texts for teaching a variety of literacy skills like character
point-of-view, vocabulary, story structure, compare/contrast and story sequence.

FAIRY TALE FUN

Graphics by Pixabay, Paula Kim Studio, A Little Peace of Africa & KG Fonts

Last year, I discovered the "twisted tale" picture book series written by Nancy Loewen and illustrated by Tatevik Avakyan that offers young readers a new, modern, and humorous perspective of "the other side of the story!"

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES

The focus of my post today is Believe Me, Goldilocks Rocks!--The Story of The Three Bears as Told by Baby Bear, and how it contrasts to two other favorite versions of this classic tale.  The story is told from Baby Bear's point-of-view and casts a more positive light on the actions of Goldilocks than the traditional tale.  The tone of the story is set when Baby Bear introduces himself as "Sam," and insists on not being called small, wee, or tiny. He also confesses that he just hates porridge, and would rather that Mama Bear serve breakfast burritos. He goes on to insist that Goldilocks is one of his best buddies, and certainly not the unwelcome house intruder everyone thinks she is.  He explains that she entered his house on a dare from Little Red Riding Hood--hereby referred to as "Little Miss Hoodie"--and was just going to stay long enough to snap a few cell phone pictures as proof and then be on her way.  Hilarious hijinks and lots of jumping on different-size beds ensue, with Sam and Goldie eventually exchanging phone numbers as she escapes through the forest.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME STORY

After sharing this "fractured" version of the Goldilocks fairy tale, I read Jan Brett's beautifully illustrated and traditionally-told Goldilocks and the Three Bears aloud to my students.  Together we compare and contrast the characters, events, problems, and solution.  We practice retelling the story using story stick puppets and use the fun poem I wrote as a reader's theater and/or choral reading activity to help my students practice reading with fluency and expression.

RETELL THE STORY WITH STICK PUPPETS

BUILD FLUENCY WITH PLAYS AND POEMS

The last picture book I introduce to my class is Alma Flor Ada's Yours Truly, Goldilocks, which is a collection of correspondences between Goldilocks and some of her best friends who live in the Hidden Forest.  It begins with an invitation from Pig One, Pig Two, and Pig Three who would like her to attend their upcoming house warming party.  Little Red Riding Hood, Baby Bear, and Peter Rabbit have all RSVP'd as well, unaware that Wolfy Lupus an his cousin, Fer O'Cious, are planning to arrive at the party unannounced!  Thank goodness Mama Bear comes to the rescue of the invited guests just in time!   This book is a great way to introduce or review proper friendly letter format to your young writers, and you can use the blank templates included in this FREEBIE I created to help them respond to the story.

ENJOY ANOTHER FAIRY TALE FREEBIE!

I hope that your students enjoy this non-traditional, and engaging exploration of Goldilocks stories! Fairy tales are rich in language and such a great way to expand student vocabulary.  Click {HERE} to see this literacy pack that features literacy enrichment activities for the three stories featured in this post.

EXPLORE MORE OF THE WOODS WITH GOLDILOCKS

Be sure to check out my Pinterest board for more ideas on how to incorporate this fun and fascinating genre into your language arts lessons as well!

Follow Jennifer Boney-Reynolds's board Fairy Tale Units & Ideas on Pinterest.

I would also love for you to follow me over on my blog, STORIES AND SONGS IN SECOND!  

Stop by to check out my posts AND subscribe to my weekly newsletter!

May all of your reading and writing lessons always have happy endings!